Council tax will rise by around £30 a year for a medium-sized family home
from 2014, new figures suggest.

Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, has been trying to get authorities to freeze their council tax. However, the Office for Budget Responsibility expects council tax to rise by an average of 0.8 per cent this year, followed by rises of 2 per cent for another four years after that.

The average council tax in England was £1,444 for a Band D property for the year ending April 1, signalling a £12 rise for houses of that size in the coming year.

After that, its forecasts would imply a rise of around £30 for a typical Band D home.

The predictions were released alongside the George Osborne's Budget, as part of calculations for inflation over the next few years.

Two in five councils are planning to raise council tax this year, despite the offer of a central government grant to encourage them to freeze rates.

Around a third of the local authorities planning to raise council tax are run by Conservative councillors. These include Oxfordshire Country Council, which covers David Cameron’s constituency of Witney.

The Government has been trying to persuade councils to keep down their taxes by offering them financial incentives. Under law, councils must also call a referendum if they plan to increase council tax by more than two per cent.

Local Government Association has said authorities wanted to keep council tax down but this is becoming more difficult amid cuts to funding and rises in demand for services.

Councils can get the the equivalent of a 1 per cent increase from Whitehall if they freeze their bills. The freeze, for the third year running, is potentially worth up to £200 to Band D residents over the three-year period.

However, local authority leaders are worried that their funding will be too low in the longer term if they continue to keep council tax at the current levels.